Motor Racing Roundup : Phil Parsons Gets His First NASCAR Victory

Phil Parsons won the first race of his NASCAR career, holding off Bobby Allison and Geoff Bodine to win the Winston 500 Sunday at the Alabama International Motor Speedway in Talladega.

Parsons, 30, younger brother of former Winston Cup champion Benny Parsons, slipped past Bodine to take the lead 15 laps from the end of the race, then outlasted his pursuers to win by .21 seconds.

Bobby Allison, who won the Daytona 500 in February, failed in his effort to take another step toward the Winston Million, the $1 million bonus that goes to any driver who wins three of the Big Four NASCAR events. The 50-year-old driver from nearby Hueytown, Ala., got past Bodine two laps from the end to take second.

Bodine, who along with Parsons dominated most of the race on the 2.66-mile, high-banked oval, finished third, followed by Terry Labonte and Ken Schrader.

Parsons, from Denver, N.C., finally won in the 111th Winston Cup race of a career dating to 1983. He is the seventh different winner in nine races this season.

Parsons, whose best previous finish was third, drove an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme to an average of 156.547 m.p.h. He won $86,850 from the total purse of $657,895.

At Imola, Italy, Brazilian Ayrton Senna and his French teammate, Alain Prost, lapped the opposition to give McLaren-Honda a one-two sweep in the San Marino Grand Prix, the second event of the 1988 world Formula One championship.

The 28-year-old from Sao Paulo edged Prost by 2.33 seconds at the finish line as he scored his first victory on the Imola circuit and the seventh Grand Prix win of his career.

Senna kept the lead throughout the 60-lap race by exploiting the superior power of his turbocharged Honda engine. He averaged 121.639 m.p.h. for the 187.9-mile event.

Prost, who had won the opening championship race in Brazil April 3, came close to his teammate only in the last few laps when Senna slowed to keep his fuel consumption under control.

At Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, motorcycle racer Eddie Lawson of Ontario, on a Yamaha, won the 500cc class race in the Portuguese Grand Prix, the fourth event counting for the world championship.

For the second consecutive year, the Portuguese Motorcycling Federation lacked the funds necessary to finance the grand prix event and the race was moved to Spain.

A crowd estimated at 50,000 watched the race in sunny weather.

Lawson covered the 30 laps of the event, with a total of 77.85 miles, in a time of 53 minutes 47.99 seconds, at an average speed of 86 m.p.h.

Lawson, a two-time world champion, leads the world championship standings with 72 points, followed by Wayne Gardner of Australia with 60. Gardner was fifth in Sunday’s race.

Hurley Haywood, driving an Audi Quattro, overcame deteriorating conditions on a temporary track built on the grounds of the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, to win the second race of the year’s Trans-Am series.

Haywood, a winner of both the 24 Hours of Daytona and 24 Hours of LeMans, took the lead midway through the race after early leader Willie T. Ribbs went into the second of his four spins.

Ribbs finished fourth, his orange Camero showing signs of his four brushes with the wall.

Haywood, 39, of Ponte Vedra, Fla., covered the 126 miles in just under 2 hours at 62.87 m.p.h. Irv Hoerr of Peoria, Ill., driving an Oldsmobile Cutlass, was second, 46 seconds behind.

John Andretti, nephew of Mario, and five other drivers completed the U.S. Auto Club’s three-day rookie orientation program at Indianapolis.

Since obtaining a ride with Mike Curb’s team last August, Andretti has driven in seven Indy-car races. He finished sixth in his first race at Elkhart Lake, finished in the points in the last four races of 1987 and wound up 14th in this season’s opener at Phoenix and 20th at Long Beach.

He hopes to qualify a 1988 Cosworth-powered Lola in this year’s Indy 500.